


It's the same old theme since nineteen-sixteen

by haipollai



Category: Captain America, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Finding a home, Growing Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-21
Updated: 2012-07-21
Packaged: 2017-11-10 10:42:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/465373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai/pseuds/haipollai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It is Steve's 20th birthday and Bucky is still months away from being 17, and they buy cheap rum to celebrate. It's not their first time drunk together (prohibition ended five years ago and someone had sneaked in alcohol to the orphanage. Bucky isn't too clear on what happened that night be he distinctly remembers the headache later)</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's the same old theme since nineteen-sixteen

They don't have much when they first move in together, Steve is 18 and Bucky is 15 and technically too young to be on his own. The sisters are too overwhelmed to really notice one extra boy who doesn't come back. They've been working odd jobs where they can get them for years and between them have just enough to get a small single room apartment. It gets cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. The lights go out sometimes and they have to work extra hard to get them back on. All they can fit is a single bed, a stove and a table. The table is covered with papers and books. Bucky's rolled out of bed and stepped on pencils. They complain to each other about being messy and chores as they learn how to be adults and all the lessons school never taught them.

Despite everything, the place is theirs and they love it.

It doesn't matter how lucky Bucky gets with girls, he always comes home to curl up with Steve. Sometimes drunk and smelling of perfume and cigarettes, making Steve grumble. Bucky lies that it didn't work out, she wasn't that into him, there was no one pretty enough and he just wants to be close to someone and Steve says he guesses it's fair after everything that Bucky's done for him, Steve can let Bucky hold him that night. 

Bucky starts inviting Steve out more, though most nights when all of Bucky's attempts to set Steve up fail and it ends up just them, they don't mind. And all it takes from Steve is a pained look and Bucky abandons all his plans to hold him when they can't afford medication or help him with it when they can. After each time, when Bucky can't do anything but hold Steve to his chest and try to help him breath they argue that they should buy more but Steve says they have to eat and live and he'll be fine. That's always his answer. He'll be fine.

It is Steve's 20th birthday and Bucky is still months away from being 17, and they buy cheap rum to celebrate. It's not their first time drunk together (prohibition ended five years ago and someone had sneaked in alcohol to the orphanage. Bucky isn't too clear on what happened that night be he distinctly remembers the headache later). They sit together on their bed, passing the drink back and forth, Steve's cheeks are red and he's smiling happily. Bucky kisses him and calls him better then any dame. Somehow Steve's face flushes redder and he says he's not sure this is okay but he doesn't care. Bucky learns that Steve's blush spreads down below his shirt.

Bucky is 20 and Steve is 24 and the world is at war. Bucky has spent weeks now watching Steve try over and over to enlist and he wants to tell him to stay home, stay safe. Give Bucky something to come back to. The months at training are almost a relief to get away from Steve from his painful and earnest need but he has never been away from Steve for so long and that quickly catches up and supersedes any other emotion. The camp never becomes home, can't ever become a home. It's Bucky's biggest regret when he looks down at the 1A and knows he'll have to leave pointy elbows and not enough space and breathless kisses behind. 

When he sits in the foxhole in Italy, waiting for everything to start and he can feel the damp in his socks, he regrets not telling those two girls to scram and just spending the entire night with Steve instead of only a few stolen hours with the sun just coming up.

There are no birthdays in the field. They celebrate coming back alive, they make up games to make the killing less real and celebrate those. And no one says a word when Captain Steve Rogers and Sergeant James Barnes sleep under the same blanket. Bucky thinks sometimes of the apartment left behind in Brooklyn but it feels like a dream he can only allow himself when Steve's arm is wrapped around him.

Bucky doesn't know any longer if he is 90 or 23. The doctors say he aged about five years as the Winter Soldier so maybe he's 28. He looks at Steve and he hasn't changed and is still 27 so maybe Bucky's now older then him or maybe Bucky should consider him 94. The entire thing is confusing except no matter their age or that Steve can no longer get drunk when he sneaks a bottle of whiskey into Bucky's cell, they're still the same. They're still Bucky and Steve and Steve and Bucky and no one argues when they end up sharing a floor in the Tower. 

They end up getting a new place, a place for them to get away from the Avengers and uniforms and the ragged memories of a war they can not escape. It has multiple rooms, a real kitchen, and a bedroom. They have no furniture (except in the bedroom). That first day Clint and Bruce give them a plant and Tony a TV, Natasha provides locks for the door, Thor promises mead on the morrow.

For now, Steve drops a pillow onto the floor and Bucky sprawls on top of him. There is no sound but the background noise of the city as if nothing else exists. It is only them and Steve's hand is on his side and Bucky remembers a thousand other moments almost like this but in all of them something was missing.

Bucky isn't sure how old they are or how long it took them to get to this point, curled up on the floor of a place that is entirely theirs. Steve kisses him and whispers welcome home and however many years Bucky has left, he wants to spend them right here.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally a prompt from surlelac for a picture I can no longer find (also I'm lazy) so for her, and Lindsey cause I'm sure she had something to do with this somehow.  
> Title from Zombie - The Cranberries


End file.
